compile from source upgrade question
 

hmm..i always install a program by compiling from source, the .tar.gz package, and i know some people prefer other method but normally, im using this :-

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/<program name>
make && make install

although the distro's package is much more neat and convenient to install/upgrade/remove, how do you guys normally do it on the source package? let say if i wanted to upgrade a program as mentioned above, can i
use back the same ./configure option as same as above and will the program be updated?

thanks

Personally, I always use checkinstall when I install from source. That lets me create a package easily and manage it with the normal Slackware tools. By the way, checkinstall is included in the Slackware extras directory.

For non-Slackware users reading this, checkinstall can also create .rpm and .deb packages.

Take a look at encap package management, developed at the University of Illinois. Ignore the discussion about encap packages; focus on the technique for managing source code packages.

Encap (and its utility epkg) creates a subdirectory of /usr/local. The source is entirely installed there and symlinked to the normal location. If you want to update/upgrade a source package installed via epkg, epkg detects the existing installation, installs the new one in parallel, then removes the original.

There is also an application called stow, which claims to do the same as epkg. I've tried it but couldn't get it to work. You may have better luck than I did.

hey guys..thanks for the reply. i will try those programs !!

This is probably a dumb question but why use these programs vs. just compiling and installing the normal way?

Programss like encap and checkinstall help automate the process of creating packages that will get registered to the slackware package database so installpk and removepackage can be used.

Otherwise, you have to keep the configured and compiled source tree around and hope that there is a 'make uninstall' target in case you want to delete a particular program.